As if responding directly to the joke that he bears more than a passing resemblance to Smash Mouth frontman Steve Harwell, the anthropomorphic pinball machine that is Guy Fieri has joined forces with the band—and Sammy Hagar, and ex-Pittsburgh Steelers halfback Jermoe Bettis— to form a fleshy, bleach-blonde, flame decal-plastered Voltron and create a cookbook. Pulling the short straw, SF Weekly dutifully alerted us to the horrifying reality of the forthcoming Smash Mouth: Recipes From The Road: A Rock n’ Roll Cookbook, to which Fieri and other “pop icons” will be contributing recipes. (Considering Fieri’s rep for eating chili-stuffed, bacon-wrapped, deep-fried-Mars-bar-topped dare food, we’re guessing that the recipes, like the book’s title, will be hard on colons.)
The book is an interesting bid by Smash Mouth to salvage their road-weary, hard-eating image after bassist Paul DeLisle became embroiled in a domestic violence dispute earlier this year. (Like you, we didn’t even know that Smash Mouth was still around.) So the book’s very announcement goes a long way to restore the band’s rightful place somewhere near the periphery of your conscious mind, where the intro to “Walkin’ On The Sun” and the inerasable image of Harwell in a windbreaker singing “All Star” over the closing credits of the movie Rat Race are on a constant loop.
According to the publisher’s note, Smash Mouth: Recipes From The Road: A Rock n’ Roll Cookbook (SM:RFTR:ARnRC, to fans) also includes “hilarious road stories straight from ‘The Mouth’,” as well as “candid road photos,” suggesting a mixed-media, postmodernist, Burroughsian mash-up likely to top critics’ year-end lists, or at least stuff the stockings of distant uncles, obnoxious co-workers, or that brother-in-law who you’re pretty sure likes barbecuing.